Burnout
by Sa'Kage
Summary: Kawamura is well known for his mildness off the courts as well as his burning ferocity on them. No one ever questions the change between the two; should they? It's always the quiet ones. Tenth on the Insanity 'verse.


**Hi all, and welcome to another story of Seigaku's Insanity, brought to you by yours truly. I hope you'll enjoy my take on Kawamura!**

******On another note, Seigaku's Insanity has reached double digits in drabbles published! *Happy dance* I never thought I'd get past four or five... Thanks to everyone who has supported Seigaku's Insanity, through reviews, favorites, and alerts!**

**Disclaimer: PoT is not mine.**

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**Burnout**

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"_**I'M BURNING!"**_ is a cry many are familiar with, and most ignore it. It's just another quirk in the zany world the tennis players inhabit. Most never feel the need to even think about it as more than an odd trait and so no one ever follows the statement through to its logical conclusion. He's burning; will he ever burn up?

...Burn out?

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To those in the "know", Kawamura Takashi's bipolarity is a simple fact of life in the tennis circuit. But to those who've only met one of his faces, the idea that more could exist is preposterous.

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Any who've eaten at his father's sushi shop while Takashi was working there would agree that the teen was one of the nicest people they'd ever met. His slightly shy, but still friendly and respectful demeanor endeared him to those who met him. In a world full of cold, bitter, angry people, his warm and kind personality was a breath of fresh air.

That is the Kawamura customers at the sushi shop saw.

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Off the court, opponents unfamiliar with Takashi saw a shy, almost nervous player who frequently committed one of the worst faux pas in tennis: f_orgetting his racket. _To them, he appeared a rookie player and an easy win.

That is the Kawamura those off the courts know. They are never prepared to meet the Kawamura he becomes with a racket in his hand.

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No matter how many times they see it, even opponents familiar with Takashi's on court persona can't help but be a little stunned by the disconnect between the two. Shy, nice Takashi; hand him a racket and he becomes raging, burning Kawamura, volcanic danger all focused on one goal: to reduce all who stand in his way to ashes.

Fiery passion and power that is so strong it's almost violent, almost vicious. That is all opponents on the court know of Kawamura.

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This is how others see him. But Takashi himself? For a long time, he could not reconcile the many faces he held. He believed he was sick, crazy- _wrong._ He avoided becoming close to others, always afraid something would trigger the violently burning persona he held under his skin. He became affable, but distant; acquaintance to all, friend to none. It was a cold existence; lonely, but at least the ice chilled the fire.

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Takashi had resigned himself to being alone in his wrongness; he wasn't happy with it, but he wasn't hurting either. Just drifting, always disconnected from the rest of the world.

Then he drifted into Seigaku, and everything changed. One by one, he met the others who would later become the regulars of the Seigaku team. On the surface, they seemed as different as his many faces, but they all shared one crucial similarity. Each and every one of them carried the same violence leashed beneath their skin.

He was drawn to them as kindred spirits, and they recognized him as one as well. Soon, Takashi had been introduced to tennis and the burning violence was unleashed, a racket in his hand and destruction in his heart.

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The many facets of a single person, each different from the last. The faces that most see. But what about his teammates? What face do they see?

They see all of them, and more. The regulars of Seigaku have watched Kawamura rage, scream, and cry. They've seen him smile, laugh, and grin. To them, Kawamura Takashi is simply Taka-san; their teammate, but more importantly, their friend.

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For so long, Kawamura was disconnected; from himself and from the world; always afraid of what would happen if he let the monster inside out. But then he found Seigaku, and with it, his true friends, people that _understood _how it felt to burn from the inside out, because of what you held within. When he found them, he found himself too; found something he could truly devote himself for without worrying about burning himself out. With Seigaku, there will always be fuel for his violence, his burning fire.

He'll never burn out.

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**And that is that! Looking back, I think I made Kawamura appear a bit psychopathic... But he is part of Seigaku, and the whole burning/personality switch thing? Practically a red carpet for a Seigaku's Insanity drabble.**

**Read and review?**

**-Sa'Kage**


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